One of the Caribbean’s most experienced politicians, Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley, has raised the grim spectre that some small-island developing states – numbered among which are several Caribbean Community (CARICOM) member countries – could simply collapse under what might become the unbearable weight of COVID-19.

A story published in the Trinidad and Tobago Guardian of Wednesday May 20 quoted the CARICOM Chair as saying in her address to the 73rd World Health Assembly that while some countries will enjoy the good fortune of successfully restructuring their economies others will not be so fortunate.

“Many countries will either have an orderly restructuring of debt or at the very least a debt moratorium that provides certainty for both the borrower and the lender, or they will have a disorderly unravelling that will create a crisis both within their respective countries and within the global financial markets,” Mottley is quoted as saying.

And according to the CARICOM Chair, the falling apart of some of the small-state economies will not be without consequences for the rest of the world.